Designers with capability to create and has in reality created things that are truly wonderful to those designers who can talk about design are like real plants to fake plants.
Mike Abelson is one of those real designer. He often talks about about his love of working with leather, and recently, he was telling me about his experience and learning from Inden craftsmen.  I am sure the craftsmen recognizes the relentless passion Mike has in creating things that are important to him, in his tenacity in achieving exactly what visualize into the actual product. Japanese craftsmen work only with people they want to work with.
“Leather is material so rich and varied in their use, their characters. They are so durable, and they acquire character through years of use. I don’t use crocodile, or animals raised just for the hide. Only of animals that we eat. It’s so interesting that more technology oriented we become, more we find leather attractive. Same with paper too. Paper is so nice to use.”
Then when I was recently re-reading A Joseph Campbell Companion, I came upon a Preface with Diane K. Osbon that said:
The people of Findhorn, Scotland, believe that the consciousness of trees goes beyond the sawmill, that they are aware of the homes into which they are made and the people they shelter.. This home, this chair, this page … It is here.
Paper perhaps carries the cells from its tree life. Leather is less processed than paper. Synthetics are so far away from the days that they were alive on this earth. A few years back, haptic design received much attention. Our science is making advancement at all times, but still, it is limited in explaining how humans recognize other life force, how humans are attracted to other living things. Seeing from this point of view, human centered design and usability point to materials, function of things that are close to real living things. We seek life.
FUJIKO SUDA 